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Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq | Seumas Milne

The war on terror, that campaign without end launched 14 years ago by George Bush, is tying itself up in ever more grotesque contortions. On Monday the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, accused of terrorism in Syria, collapsed after it became clear British intelligence had been arming the same rebel groups the defendant was charged with supporting.

The prosecution abandoned the case, apparently to avoid embarrassing the intelligence services. The defence argued that going ahead withthe trial would have been an “affront to justice” when there was plenty of evidence the British state was itself providing “extensive support” to the armed Syrian opposition.

That didn’t only include the “non-lethal assistance” boasted of by the government (including body armour and military vehicles), but training, logistical support and the secret supply of “arms on a massive scale”. Reports were cited that MI6 had cooperated with the CIA on a “rat line” of arms transfers from Libyan stockpiles to the Syrian rebels in 2012 after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. …

Long and Block Debate Thick vs. Thin Libertarianism

Following his debate with Sheldon Richman, Walter Block recently joined C4SS’s Roderick Long for another in-depth conversation about thick vs. thin libertarianism. The debate is moderated by Daniel Rothschild, and is just over an hour long.

Source: c4ss.org

Illuminating Discord: An Interview with Robert Anton Wilson

CRNLA: Tell us a little about your background.

RAW: I was born into a working class Irish Catholic family in Brooklyn 44 years ago, at the brutal bottom of the Great Depression. I suppose this early imprinting and conditioning made me a life-long radical. My education was mostly scientific, majoring in electrical engineering and applied math at Brooklyn Tech and Brooklyn Polytech. Those imprints made me a life-long rationalist. I have become increasingly skeptical about, or detached from, the assumption that radicalism and rationalism are the only correct perspectives with which to view life, but they remain my favorite perspectives.

CRNLA: What are your favorite novels, movies, TV shows and music?

RAW: The novels would be, I suppose, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, The Magus by Fowles,The Roots of Heaven by Gary, Don Quixote and anything by Mark Twain. Movies:Intolerance, Broken Blossoms and everything else by David Mark Griffith, Citizen Kane,The Trial, King Kong, 2001. TV: Star Trek and Mary Hartman. Music: Beethoven’s Ninthand his late quartets, Bach, Bizet, Carl Orff, Vivaldi, the less popular and more experimental stuff by Stravinsky.

CRNLA: What do you think of M*A*S*H, the Freak Brothers, Bob Dylan?

RAW: I loved Altman’s film of M*A*S*H but I can’t stand the TV series. The Freak Brothersare funny, but I deplore the lifestyle it celebrates. Of course, Einstein and Michelangelo were sloppy, too, but only because they were too busy with real work to fix their attention on sartorial status games. Hippies generally aren’t busy with anything except feeling sorry for themselves. Dylan seems to me a totally pernicious influence — the nasal whine of death and masochism. Certainly, this would be a more cheerful world if there were no Dylan records in it. But Dylan and his audience mirror each other, and deserve each other; as Marx said, a morbid society creates its own morbid grave-diggers. …

$1.25 for the first copy. $1.00 for every additional copy.

The purpose of this essay is political revolution. And I don’t mean a revolution in libertarian political theory, or a revolutionary new political strategy, or the kind of revolution that consists in electing a cadre of new and better politicians to the existing seats of power. When I say a revolution, I mean the real thing: I hope that this essay will contribute to the overthrow of the United States government, and indeed all governments everywhere in the world. You might think that the argument of an academic essay is a pretty slender reed to lean on; but then, every revolution has to start somewhere, and in any case what I have in mind may be somewhat different from what you imagine. For now, it will be enough to say that I intend to give you some reasons to become an individualist anarchist, and undermine some of the arguments for preferring minimalist government to anarchy. In the process, I will argue that the form of anarchism I defend is best understood from what Chris Sciabarra has described as a dialectical orientation in social theory, as part of a larger effort to understand and to challenge interlocking, mutually reinforcing systems of oppression, of which statism is an integral part—but only one part among others. Not only is libertarianism part of a radical politics of human liberation, it is in fact the natural companion of revolutionary Leftism and radical feminism.

Support C4SS with Charles Johnson’s “Liberty, Equality, Solidarity”

Source: distro.libertarianleft.org

Open-Mouth Sabotage, Networked Resistance, and Asymmetric Warfare on the Job

… Let’s take a specific case: Pretend you work at a hospital. You put together a textfile contrasting the deliberate understaffing and other malfeasance where you work to the official happy talk (“extraordinary patient care” “renowned for going above and beyond”) in the mission statement. You send copies to the offices of the most important doctors with admitting privileges, the local United Way/Red Cross leadership the hospital management likes to hobnob with, the Chamber of Commerce and City Council, the local nursing college that sends students to train there, the major charitable donors, the local alternative press, all the reporters whose bylines have appeared under healthcare stories in the mainstream paper, to the CEOs of other local hospitals, and then CC it to the board of directors and C-suite (not to mention major shareholders and creditors!) at corporate headquarters while you’re at it. You can probably apply the same principle pretty easily in any line of wage employment.

We’re living in an era of labor relations characterized by the convergence of two trends: the emergence of unprecedented possibilities for easy, low-cost damage to employers, at a time when workers have less reason for loyalty to their employers than at any time since the Thirteenth Amendment. In other words, the perfect storm. As more and more disgruntled workers figure out the possibilities, it will be impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.

The twentieth century was the era of the large organization. By the end of the twenty-first, there probably won’t be enough of them left to bury.

"There is no 'War on Cops'"; There is a Long-Overdue Conversation About Police Brutality

Tomorrow is the funeral service for Harris Country Sheriff Darren Goforth, who a week ago was murdered while filling his police cruiser with gas in Texas. His death was senseless, tragic, and horrific. There’s no possible excuse for it. But, as I write in a new Daily Beast column,

There’s also no excuse for attempts by law enforcement, media, and politicians to claim that the unmotivated killing is part of a “war on cops” or in any way related to the Black Lives Matter movement or other people critical of law enforcement and police brutality.

To do so is simply to wave away a decade-long decline in confidence in police that has everything to do with behavior by law enforcement, not the citizens they serve. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans with “a great deal/quite a lot of confidence” in police has dropped from 64 percent in 2004 to just 52 percent, its lowest number in 22 years.

So far this year, the same number of police nationwide have been killed in the line of duty as last year: between 25 and 28, depending on the source (this doesn’t include traffic and other on-the-job accidents unless the officer was in pursuit of or actively engaged in dealing with a criminal). …

An Unanswered Call for Help at Rikers Island

Over the years, reports of brutality and neglect at theRikers Island jail complex have become routine. And while the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio has been working to improve conditions at New York City jails, the death of Carlos Mercado shows that the problems of the past could haunt the city for years to come.

On June 22, 2013, Mr. Mercado was arrested in Brooklyn after allegedly trying to sell a small amount of heroin to an undercover police officer. He was taken to Rikers and, within 15 hours, died of complications of diabetes.

In this jail surveillance video obtained by The New York Times, he is seen walking unsteadily and carrying his vomit in a plastic bag. At one point he collapses on the floor and is left lying there for three minutes while correction officers step over him. Rankin & Taylor, a law firm representing Mr. Mercado’s family, is in settlement negotiations with the city.

Frenzied Trump Supporters Admit They’d Be Just As Happy Tearing Him To Pieces

WASHINGTON—Saying they simply needed something to direct their anger toward, the nation’s frenzied Donald Trump supporters admitted Thursday that, if circumstances were different, they would be just as happy tearing the Republican frontrunner to pieces. “To be honest, I’m just violently mad, and Trump’s done a great job of pointing me in the direction of things to wreck—although, if things change and I end up mercilessly ripping into Trump instead of rabidly backing him, that would be just fine too,” said Nashua, NH resident Jeff Waldman, echoing the sentiments of hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters nationwide, each of whom confirmed that they ultimately just wanted to be part of something destructive, whether it was at a pro-Trump rally, an anti-Trump rally, or some other outlet for their bitterness and indignation. “You’ve got to hand it to the guy for helping me channel my all-consuming rage about my own lot in life into ruthless attacks on immigrant families, women, and the other presidential candidates. But really, there’s no reason I couldn’t unleash that vicious energy on Trump himself. Either way, I get to yell.” Trump’s supporters added that, if all else failed, they could always go back to directing their blinding fury at their spouses and children.

Introducing the Mutual Exchange Symposium

I’m happy to announce the official launch of the Center for a Stateless Society’s (C4SS)Monthly Mutual Exchange Symposium. C4SS’s effort to achieve mutual understanding through exchange is now a monthly project. Mutual Exchange will explore many issues from a variety of different perspectives.

Mutual Exchange is C4SS’s goal in two senses: We favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to C4SS’s audience.

A lead essay, deliberately provocative, will be followed by responses from inside and outside C4SS, a rejoinder by our lead essayist, and further contributions if need be. C4SS is extremely interested in feedback from our readers. Suggestions and comments are enthusiastically encouraged. If you’re interested in proposing topics and/or authors for our program to pursue, or if you’re interested in participating yourself, please email C4SS’s Mutual Exchange Coordinator, Cory Massimino, at cory.massimino@c4ss.org.

I look forward to Mutual Exchange, and to seeing our authors and readers gain a better, fuller understanding through shared dialogue.

• The Humanity of Corporations
• Choice, Consent, and Voluntaryism
• Class Struggle in Civil Service
• Women and The Invisible Fist
• Energy and Transportation
• Private Property: How, When and Why
• The Point of Privilege

Source: c4ss.org

Source: c4ss.org